Okay, so the "family computer" in my house (not the one I use) has some issues. My sister inadverdantly installed Vista over the stable version of XP I had running for them on the computer, 'cause she isn't at all computer savvy. All the files and settings, program files, etc., were fortunately retained, and I have them on my external drive. I've managed to install a version of XP that, while functional, does not contain any of the factory-installed drivers, programs, and settings that were running on the computer, and I cannot install them from the files I have on my external drive. Right now, the NTFS volume doesn't contain much beyond what is required for XP to run. The computer itself is a Hewlett Packard desktop that did not come with any type of recovery disks, nor did I bother to make any. However, it does contain a recovery partition (The FAT32 volume, D:\).

So when they first got the computer I could press F10 during the boot and start the recovery process (Which I've had to several times in the past.). However, now pressing F10 does absolutely nothing. I have no idea why it won't start the recovery process. I have made sure that the recovery partition is exactly the same as when it came out of the factory (I've never been able to re-write the files or format the drive, so I expect this is so).

In a nutshell, I want to force a system recovery to run on the computer from the recovery partition, in order to restore factory settings. How?

Also, I want to restore the ability to run the system recovery console during boot. This probably means using the registry editor.

Fixed it, boys n' girls. For further reference, what I had to do was restore a folder in the windows directory that controlled the system recovery process, then execute the system recovery using one of the files. Not pro, but adequate.